“Pioneering Our Future” is the theme for the Philip area and Haakon County Community Assessment to be held on October 12-14, 2004.

“The homesteaders and ranchers who settled in this area took charge of their lives,” says Glenn Parsons, President of the Philip Chamber of Commerce. “They didn’t just let things happen to them, but set about to improve their lives by opportunities available to them. They organized into communities that cooperated in order to improve their lives. The same needs to be true for us today.

It was 1:30 a.m. The house was quiet and everyone else was asleep, the bums. Maybe it was the six bowls of chili and the chunks of bread I had for supper. No, that was normal.

My wife was snoring enough to keep the whole house awake. No, she does not snore, but I had to blame somebody.

My married son is in the army. Maybe I couldn’t stop worrying that he might see live action in Iraq. I started debating with myself the pros and cons of the U.S. going to and still being in Iraq. My wife started to stir, so I got out of bed and headed for the kitchen.

Ernie’s Building Center owners Ernie and Laurel Nemec will be celebrating the business 45th anniversary on Saturday, October 2. The Nemecs will be serving a free lunch during the customer appreciation open house.

From a start-up undertaking for high school sweethearts and newlyweds, the business has grown and changed to now serve customers in a 125 mile radius of Midland. Three generations have worked there, with son Randy Nemec growing up in the business and now being indispensible; thus the name of Ernest D.

Corporal Frederick Neved of Milesville was killed in action in North Korea on April 15, 1951.

Durward (Dud) Wheeler saw many things in the Korean War. He pauses and says, “Yeah, a lot of them, but didn’t think about it at the time. Now, if you tell too many of those kind of stories, people might think you’re bragging.”

Nelson was in a headquarters company, but ended up on the front line. He was in several different locations, the last was where the 25th Korean Division was wiped out. Similar to other places, every tree on the hill was blown off.

Merchants lost no time in rebuilding after the destructive fire on October 6, 1920, as you can see by this picture of the east side of main street in 1921. The fire started in the Schimke Furniture store and was discovered by Henry Hoffman about 3:00 a.m. There was plenty of water to fight it, but it had too big a start when discovered. There were no personal injuries, but the financial loss was heavy, estimated at a total of $225,000. It was about one-third covered by insurance.